The Braves activated reliever Josh Ravin from the 10-day disabled list and optioned Lucas Sims back to Triple-A Gwinnett on Friday as the bullpen shuffle continued.
The move came one day after Sims faced six Mets batters in the seventh inning of his season debut and recorded one out, allowing two hits, three runs and three walks, including consecutive walks before he was replaced. He gave up a homer to the first batter he faced, Adrian Gonzalez.
“He just needs to go pitch,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said of Sims, who’ll turn 24 on May 10. “And I told him, you’re too young to be sitting down there for six or eight days and then have to pitch. That’s for somebody a little older and more experienced.”
Ravin, 30, was brought up from Triple-A on March 31 and allowed one walk in a hitless inning against the Phillies that day. He went on the DL two days later for a viral infection.
A 6-foot-4 right-hander who spent parts of the past three seasons with the Dodgers, Ravin has a 4.91 ERA in 34 career major league appearances with 44 strikeouts, 18 walks and eight homers allowed in 36-2/3 innings.
Sims was a Braves first-round draft pick in 2012 out of Brookwood High School. The Lawrenceville native made his major league debut Aug. 1 and went 3-6 with a 5.62 ERA in 14 games, including 10 starts for the Braves over the remainder of the 2017 season.
He faltered badly late in spring training this year when given a chance to compete for the fifth-starter job, then pitched four scoreless innings and allowed three hits with two walks and seven strikeouts in his only start for Gwinnett before he was recalled by the Braves on April 15.
“He’s still a young kid with a lot of promise, and he needs to be (used) more regularly,” Snitker said. “He just needs to pitch. Because we’re going to need him again. We actually talked about that a couple of days ago, that if we didn’t use him soon, we probably needed to get him back (to Triple-A) and get him back in the rotation.”
